My brother always tell me, that there is an invisible thread that connects Maths and language. I have seen many of my Maths teachers handle language classes in school. Recently I read this Tamil novel, 6174 which made me realize my brother is right as always.

The number 6174 is called Kaprekar constant. It was first identified by the Indian mathematician Kaprekar. To explain this we can take a four digit number like 1897. Now arrange it in both ascending and descending order. 9871 and 1789. If you subtract both these numbers you will get 8082. Now repeat the same process and you will get 8532 and then repeat it again and you will get the answer as 6174.

This is kind of tricky number. If you repeat the same process again with this number you will again get 6174 as an answer. This is constant and you cannot take the process forward from here. This tamil novel is based on this concept.

After a long time there is this racy pacy thriller in Tamil. In the start of the novel there are war ships starting from Russia and North Korea for their practice in the Indian Ocean. It alleviates the pressure of USA in the region. All the ships get stalled in particular location because of some technical difficulties. At the same time there are two asteroids starts circling in the space exactly at the same co-ordinates. Few foreign terrorist organizations and a person who thinks himself as the Lemurian (descendants of the lost land Lemuria) wants to put end to the earth. A professor with the help of his students who is a Crystal researcher and Geometrical researcher stops their plan. This is the plot.

The place where the penultimate scene of the novel happens

I am not worried about giving away the plot because there are so much more to savour in the book. The search and the clues lead them from Padmanabapuram to Thailand to Lonavar to Myanmar. This book should be a result of massive research. Right from the description of places and fishing hamlet near Orissa and explaining the features of the Mingun Pagoda of Myanmar in the penultimate scene, the author does a good job in bringing those places in front of our eyes

One thing that is heartening in the novel is, there was no undue heroism. For most of the novels I read in tamil in the genre, the hero will be jack of all trades and undisputed king also. But the author has given the lead of characters so clearly that as the novel progresses we know what their shortcomings and what their strengths are. Such characterizations are very much necessary when you develop a thriller.

The author Kasthuri Sudhakar is from Tuticorin. His language is a treat to read. I am from Tirunelveli so I enjoyed reading it. Few weeks earlier the author had commented in one of my posts and I wanted to do the post then and there. But then I remembered his birthday falls on April 22nd (Yes I am a stalker :P). So I wrote this and kept in draft but forgot to schedule it.

Better late than never. Happy Birthday Kasthuri Sudhakar. We are expecting a lot more from you in coming days.

My Say! Thanks for dropping by! There are so many treasures in so many languages. Whenever I hear beautiful plots in some other languages, I feel sorry for myself because I dont know to read and appreciate. Sometimes the beauty of the words are lost in translation.

Dear Prasanna,
Thanks for the well balanced review. I enjoyed the way you have analyzed the plot. It took 8 months to do the research and to complete the book it took 2 years ( with all revisions and re-revisions…). Thanks for your birthday wishes. Sorry, I could see the blog only today.

Thanks Sudhakar. I had the same experience too. I ordered the book and after 10 days, they sent an email saying it would take another 5 days to deliver. But by that time, my friend would have started his journey back here. So had to cancel the order 😦

Another friend is coming this weekend, hopefully he can go somewhere and buy it himself in Chenai.. Fingers crossed.

Ramkumar, the first edition is sold out in many stores. We have made some corrections and the second set should be hitting stands this week. Discovery Book Palace must be having them by next week. Please tell your friend to ask for the new edition. ( Not much of difference from the old. Anyway, you would get the revised pages on the 6174 FB page !)

excellent book sir… just finished reading it… thoroughly enjoyed the journey…. good sci-fi Fiction works have started coming in tamil recently…. i also read a novel by an another new author Kava Kamz… enjoyed…
May the service you new authors provide to tamil grow more and more… and encourage us in our reading journey.
keep it up…